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“I don’t know, Dylan,” Abby hedged.
Scott already let her dog spend inordinate amounts of time sprawled in front of his air conditioning vents; letting her swim in the pool might be pushing too far, and she didn’t want to risk overstepping.
“Does she not know how to swim?” Dylan cocked his head. “That’s okay. I can teach her.”
“No, she can swim,” Abby replied. “But she has a lot of fur, and she’s shedding. I don’t want her to clog your filter.”
Turning to his dad, Dylan lifted pleading eyes. “It can’t be worse than when the cherry tree drops all those petals in the pool, right, Dad? You always complain when you have to clean them out.”
Scott grimaced. “I don’t complain...”
“It’s okay,” Abby assured them both. “Gen doesn’t need to swim.”
“But she’s so hot.” Dylan flopped to the floor beside the dog, whose fine fur quivered in the breeze from the vent. “Look, she’s panting, even in her sleep.”
Scott dropped an arm over Abby’s shoulders. “I don’t mind, but it’s up to you. I can ask the pool guy to come a little more often.”
“I can’t...”
“Yes!” Dylan leapt to his feet. “C’mon, Gen.”
The dog lifted her head, gazing up at Dylan with adoring eyes, then heaved to her feet, shaking and jingling her collar tags.
“Dylan.” Scott’s firm voice stopped his son in his tracks. “Gen is Abby’s dog. She gets to decide, and you’ll abide by her decision.”
Dylan’s shoulders slumped as Gen, also chastised, sat at his feet, ears pulled back.
“Yes, sir.” Then, he turned his most angelic expression on Abby. “Please?”
Gen flicked her ears, dropping her jaw open in a doggy grin and sweeping the floor with her tail, as if asking for permission, as well.
Abby couldn’t help snorting a laugh. How could she say no with both of them ganging up on her? “If it’s okay with your dad, it’s okay with me.”
“Alright!” Dylan punched the air, then rocketed up the stairs, Gen fast on his heels.
“Are you sure?” Abby turned to Scott, already questioning herself. “It’s really no big deal...”
“I’m sure,” Scott said.
He tugged her closer and she turned into his body, resting her forehead against his chest.
The slow sweep of his hand up and down her spine left a trail of goosebumps, lifting the hair on the back of her neck and rushing down her arms. They hadn’t kissed, yet, but his casual touch no longer surprised her, and she’d come to welcome it, as well as the slow coil of heat it built low in her belly.
So different from Will’s, which had been all electricity and intense passion, trapped in moments between his obsession with his career and research. Instead, Scott stole every opportunity to brush against her, wrap her hand in his, or tuck her under his arm.
Dylan came trouncing down the stairs wearing his swim trunks, and though Abby pulled away, Scott kept his arms firmly around her.
Ignoring them, Dylan banged through the house, Gen close behind, collecting two towels, then tearing out the back door.
Scott turned to follow them, keeping Abby gathered in close.
As they stepped out onto the back porch, she tugged again. “I don’t want Dylan...”
“Dylan will be fine,” Scott interrupted her, but he loosened his hold enough that she could slip away if she truly wanted to. “He adores you, and it’s good for him to see I do, too.”
Abby hesitated a moment longer, then nodded, threading her arm around his waist. “Okay.”
“Watch this!” Dylan hollered from the end of the diving board, then cannon-balled into the pool.